In a dream, I met a teenage girl.

She looked at me—really looked—  
the way we do when we’re still young enough  
to expect the truth.

“How old are you?” she asked.  
“And how much do you weigh?”

I opened my mouth… and paused.

For a moment,  
I couldn’t find myself in the question.

Then I remembered.

“I’m 67.”

She tilted her head, studying me—  
not with judgment…  
but with something softer.  
Something honest.

“We weigh about the same?”

And something in me…  
exhaled.

We just stood there.

Not comparing.  
Not measuring.  
Not trying to be more or less than we were.

Just… seeing.


But it hadn’t always been this way.

There were years—  
years of being shaped by other people’s perceptions.  
Years of being misread, mislabeled,  
fitted into stories that were never mine.

Years of trying to find myself  
inside systems that couldn’t actually see me.

I questioned everything.  
I unraveled everything.  
I felt things I didn’t want to feel—  
again and again—  
until there was nothing left to avoid.

That’s where Shadow Poopy came in.

Not as a joke.

As the part of me willing to stay.  
To sit in it.  
To turn it over.  
To remain… even when it was uncomfortable.  
Even when it was messy.  
Even when it would have been easier to walk away.

Nothing was wasted.


AnuBel stood nearby now,  
her lantern glowing softly between us.

“Look,” she whispered.

And I did.

The girl I had been—  
open, curious, still becoming.

The woman I had become—  
lived, aware, still here.

And suddenly…

there was no distance between us.

No gap to cross.  
No version of me to fix.  
No part of me to leave behind.

Just a quiet, undeniable truth:

I never actually lost her.

From behind us,  
Shadow Poopy leaned on his shovel,  
a small, knowing smile on his face.

“Told you,” he said.  
“Nothing goes to waste.”


Some things don’t need to be fixed.

But they do need to be felt.  
Seen.  
Lived all the way through.

And when they are…

what remains isn’t something new.

It’s something truer.

Something that was there all along:

I am still me.

---

### A Gentle Reflection

If this stirred something in you, you’re not alone.

So many of us have spent years trying to understand who we are through the eyes of systems that couldn’t truly see us. We adapt, we question, we unravel—and somewhere along the way, we wonder if we’ve lost something essential.

But what if you haven’t?

What if the parts of you that feel distant…  
are not gone,  
just waiting to be seen again—without distortion?

You don’t have to go back and fix everything.

You only have to begin here:

With honesty.  
With presence.  
With a willingness to feel what’s real.

From there, something shifts.

And slowly, gently…

You may begin to recognize yourself again.


— AnuBel, LLC  
AnuBel.com

For most of my life, I carried a secret — tucked away in the shadows where I thought no one could see. It whispered, “Something is terribly wrong with me.” I wore masks, twisted myself into shapes I hoped would be accepted, and worked twice as hard just to belong.

I was raised in a world where conformity meant survival. To be different was dangerous. And so I learned to hide. I hid my sensitivity, my honesty, my uncanny way of seeing what others didn’t want to see. I hid the very parts of me that made me who I am.

But hiding always comes at a cost. No matter how hard I tried, I burned out. I said the “wrong” thing. I asked for too much. I felt too deeply. People drifted away, and each loss cut like proof that my secret was true: something really was wrong with me.

“The wound is where the light enters you.” — Rumi

It took me years — and more than one dark night of the soul — to see that my wound was not proof of my brokenness. It was the opening. The very crack through which my true gifts began to shine.

What I once saw as shame — my sensitivity, my honesty, my ability to read the hidden patterns of people and places — has become the ground of my calling. These weren’t flaws. They were seeds. They only needed the soil of acceptance to grow.

The truth is this: your wound is your gift.

Through pain, I learned to see potential in others — to glimpse the light they can’t yet see in themselves. Through rejection, I learned the courage of boundaries and the power of letting go with love. Through shame, I found compassion that runs deeper than judgment.

And through it all, I discovered that the part of me I once thought was “too much” was never wrong. It was sacred.

We live in a world that tells us to polish our edges and hide our shadows. But the truth is, our shadows are where the light begins. Healing isn’t about erasing what hurts — it’s about allowing those places to transform into wisdom, compassion, and power.

This is the work I do now. Not because I mastered my wounds, but because I befriended them. I learned to see them not as chains, but as invitations.

Your wound is your gift. My wound became my gift. And together, our healing becomes the gift we offer the world.

If this reflection stirred something in you, I invite you to step into AnuBel's world -- a place where your imagination, your stories, and even your shadows are welcomed.

Begin with a Play Date, receive the free 7 Dream Seeds, or simply wander this site to see what calls to you. However you arrive, you are welcome here -- just as you are.